Reg Mombassa | Simpliticism

In his latest exhibition Cranium Universe: further experiments in the Simpliticism Chris O’Doherty aka Reg Mombassa invites us to a new religion, art movement and political party. “Simpliciticism” has only one commandment “Be Kind – to yourself, to other humans, to the animals and to the earth.” This commandment seems fundamental enough, yet in the whirlwind of our times this intrinsic humanity can be lost in the diatribe of online reels and commentary that collide on our screens and streets.

O’Doherty captures the zeitgeist in a distilled format and direct way that is uniquely his own. Understated in scale, his prints, paintings and drawings are wry observations and absurd imaginings of the social and political landscapes around us. As the exhibition title suggests, the world is put through the Mombassa cranium, processed and reimagined, and spills out onto the paper for us to digest.

The current show at Rogue Pop-Up, Redfern, is a product of the artist’s inexhaustible output, with over seventy works on paper created over the last four years. Across the gallery’s two levels the narrative form of his work leads us through an uncanny valley of O’Doherty’s travels through the landscape. Studies of trees, outhouses, and Australiana are scattered with the usual characters – the smoking business fly, maggot infested businessmen, robots and electric Jesus. These are joined by new recruits from outer space and from the United States of America – Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Like the “real” world, they are interacting in an absurd, apocalyptic time capsule, where geographical borders are usurped by the new worlds created by tech and “nerdo wizards”.

The concept of “Simpliciticism” resonates with the scale, medium and feel of O’Doherty’s work – his succinct observations of a lounge chair, outhouse or tree are potent in their distilled forms. Outhouse, 2025, is a study of a classic Australian outhouse in a coloured etching with aquatint. The artist’s minimal compositions thrive within the etching medium. The bold lines of the etching plate mirror the thick lines of his charcoal drawings. Clean verticals and a reduced colour palette result in a striking portrait of Australian suburbia. A climbing rose ornately decorates a red brick outhouse, with a blue tin roof. Here beauty and decay are found in the mundane, and the usual sordid outgoings of the outhouse.  

As we continue through the landscape, O’Doherty’s ongoing series of tree studies infuse the ordinary stump or trunk with a moody or uncanny quality. The bleak or dark mood is reminiscent of the Australian gothic – a genre that infuses the Australian landscape with an atmosphere of unease. In Moonlit gum trunk, Moonee beach, 2024, O’Doherty impresses an eerie quality to the subject drawing a ghost-like, close study of a gum trunk at dusk. Working with charcoal and coloured pencils on paper he fills the irregular picture plane with his soft colouring. The tree glows against the dark shifting purples, blues and greens. Its shadowy trunk holds the light of the moon against an ominous bushland and sky that threatens to consume it.

It is interesting to see the shift in mood and feel of his compositions as O’Doherty shifts from pencil and charcoal, or pen and ink wash to oils. The drawing of Skeleman with muscle horse, 2025, and oil painting of Skeleman on a blue horse, 2025, both depict a skeleman on a horse posing in front of an apocalyptic landscape of coal powered plants. Unlike the soft transparency of the coloured pencils on paper, the oils result in dense, richer forms – a more candied, sweeter, toxic scene with the red veins bulging boldly on blue horse. The mood and the message are even more lurid in this form. However, the buttery, luminous oils don’t carry the distinct grittiness of the charcoal and ink wash that O’Doherty’s work is known for.

Cranium Universe is a trip through the uncanny and the fantastical blur of daily life. Here O’Doherty plays between real and imagined, fact and fiction as he draws our attention to the conflict of the “real” world, or the world we perceive it to be. Simple in premise, his artist rant (another twist on the artist statement) strikes a chord with our anxious state – unsure of truth or fiction as we consume algorithms that play to our own bias and perception. In this feeding frenzy of seemingly infinite information is there any more clarity? Or is the result further unease that we are only shown what we think is true.

In this dreaded complexity, Cranium Universe provides at least one truism – that art is a tool that can create meaning out of the chaos. And at least with O’Doherty’s wry, poetic view of the world, and his Simpliticism movement, we can begin to navigate the forces that surround us with a reminder for kindness and humanity.

Exhibition
Chris O’Doherty Aka Reg Mombassa
Cranium Universe: further experiments in the Simpliticism
Paintings Drawing & Prints
Until 29 June 2025
Rogue Pop-Up, Sydney

Images courtesy of the artist and Rogue Pop-Up Gallery, Sydney.